Three Things That Inspired Me This Week

An dance convention, music and a podcast that just made me feel better

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This week the rhythm of my life changed dramatically as I made the transition from freelancer to full time employee and head of a new division. As well as a lot of time spent talking to people on screens I spent 20 hours travelling for a four hour face to face meeting - which was actually worth it on so many levels.

Obviously, I also read Intermezzo by Sally Rooney so I’m not going there. Except to say it is a wonderful book and any reviewer who writes some nonsense about ‘oh do people really have those internal conversations?’ is obviously someone that has never loved, lost or lived.

Here’s what inspired me this week.

CAN YOU DANCE? SUPER CONVENTION.

16,000 young dancers, their parents and teachers all met up in Liverpool last weekend to dance, to learn, to network and to create enough positive energy to power a country.

Being a dancer is physically and mentally tough. It can be bleak and thankless and it can be cruel and heartbreaking. But it can also be infinitely and deeply rewarding: that moment when your body and the music become one, when you feel the choreography is no longer choreography but a natural physical response to rhythm, melody and emotion is the highest high you will ever feel.

Can You Dance? offers a safe, celebratory space for dancers to express themselves and know that they are part of a bigger tribe than just their local dance school. In this place they don’t have to explain to anyone about the joy and the pain.

I was at the event with my team to run an audition. 92 dancers spent two hours with us dancing and giving of themselves. Around the huge Harlequin dance floor there were friends and parents offering encouragement. In the spaces all around us there were other masterclasses going on and in the exhibition space next door there three more stages and a main performance space that seats 2000 people.

When a class for younger dancers finished a group of seven and eight year olds came to watch the big boys and girls and get inspired about their own journeys.

The world of dance has a reputation for being cut throat and vicious but Can You Dance? reminded me that it can also be inspirational and joyous.

Find out more about Can You Dance HERE

THE SWAN EP by SHEKU KANNEH-MASON

There are five tracks on this EP which is out on the Decca label. And since when do classical artists release EPs? The title track’s melody is as graceful as a swan while underneath, we could take a literal definition and suggest that the strings and piano beat a rhythm that we imagine match the bird’s feet paddling under the water.

However, there is a level of art in the playing that sweeps away academic descriptions or scholarly dissection. This is music as emotion and transformation.

The recording is vivid with scrapes, strokes and breaths audible. We are reminded that music is a human endeavour, that someone built like us has the ability to take a few pieces of maple, poplar or willow and several strands of animal intestines and transform them into heaven.

ALWAYS TAKE NOTES Podcast With ROBERT HARRIS, Novelist

This podcast series hosted by Rachel Lloyd and Simon Akam is one of the best examples of its genre. Always Take Notes features fascinating Guests chatting to knowledgeable and passionate hosts who take the business of writing and publishing seriously. They have two little faults: constructing long convoluted and sometimes indirect questions and sometimes coming across as a little too privileged and smug.

Oh and Simon served in the British Army for one year which we could probably hear less about. But I have learned to live all of that and just enjoy the chat.

The episode the released on 1st October 2024 with author Robert Harris is a gem. The presenters allowed Harris the space to be open and honest about his writing, his challenges and his success. Yes he started a book and had to go back and rewrite it before he’d even finished a draft - according to all self- appointed writing experts this is completely wrong. Yes his first US publishing deal (for Fatherland) was worth more than he had earned in ten years as a journalist including time as the Observer’s political editor - and this made his life much easier.

Why was any of this inspirational? Because, as someone in the process of writing a novel, it was positive and reassuring to hear honesty about the difficulty of the mechanics of writing. Harris was not referring to challenges with creative ideas or process but the very manual actions of forging creative ideas into the shape that a book needs. I have ideas, I have plots and I have plans. Where I get stuck is that shapeshifting part where the inspiration becomes a book.

Harris also talks about the time that it takes him to write a book: anywhere between three to five years. There are so many authors who can write and publish every 12 or 18 months and it can be frightening to be sat here thinking that I could never achieve that. Listening to Harris I realised that the way I judge my writing pace is like comparing my 5K running time to Sir Mo Farrah. What I need to accept is that completing the distance should be my objective rather than trying to win an Olympic gold.

Always Take Notes is well worth your time and, if you are worried about getting your writing thoughts in order, then listen to the Robert Harris episode and put your mind at rest.

Check out Robert Harris on Always Take Notes HERE

Please check out my latest short story collection Love Hangover and Other Stories. It features eleven stories taking you from Studio 54 to the Cold War via a man being haunted and hunted by his past, an old school gangster and a woman who hates raisins. You can download it HERE